Revitalizing Conservatism

May 13, 2003

To Conservative Leaders and Activists:

1. Beginning a Discussion on the Future of Conservatism. We at ACU believe that it is time for the conservative movement to begin a serious discussion of its future course. The issue is, are we to become just a lobbying force for the Republican Party or should we regain our status as a cutting-edge force moving the country towards freedom and responsibility?

2. Moving Policy To the Right. When Ronald Reagan advisor, Ed Meese, met with outside conservative groups in the White House, he always ended by asking the attendees to “keep up the pressure from the right.” To those of us in the Administration, this was critical to prove to Congress there was public support further right that Reagan decision-makers had to take into account. Otherwise, all of the pressure would be from the left and policy would inevitably move in the same direction. Today, most conservative pressure ends up as simple cheerleading for the White House. That can be helpful but nothing pushes politics further to the right and conservatism and the Republican Party drift.

3. Conservatives Not on the Battlefield. The President’s chief strategist was remarkably forthright about this at a recent White House briefing. Reacting to the first three questions from the conservative audience pushing him to fight harder for a judicial nominee then before the Senate, he replied: “It is strange that conservatives are pushing us so hard on this when normally, you would be opposing us for nominating a judge with a relatively moderate record and who served under Bill Clinton. The Democrats have been so relentless that the whole battle has been between the left and the political center.” Truly, this advisor is a political genius. He put his finger directly on the nub of the matter. Conservatism today is not even on the battlefield.

4. The Split on the Right. But it is worse. Conservatives are fighting each other on the front pages of their own magazines. National Review writer David Frum made the argument public with a banner denunciation of any conservative with reservations about the invasion of Iraq. Those conservative intellectuals and activists opposed or even those critical of it before the fighting or even those who mentioned that protecting Israel’s interests could complicate matters were all labeled paleo-conservatives and pushed off to the nutty fringe. The only good guys remaining on the right were neo-conservatives. Frum named names, some of who differed on principle, but most simply saw the facts differently. He was so obsessed with his own righteousness in anathematizing heretics he was heedless of how the split would further weaken the forces of the right.

5. Invisible Mainstream Conservatism. From the 1950s to the rise of Ronald Reagan, National Review defined mainstream conservatism. Bill Buckley was its public hero and his associate Frank Meyer was the leader of the working intellectuals and activists who provided the muscle to the cause. One of my early roles was as a young professor team-teaching with Meyer across the country to spread the conservative message to the nation. Yet, once Buckley turned the magazine to others and Meyer died, NR editorial policy drifted to the establishment Republican center. When I met with one of the later editors, he told me his goal was to turn National Review into the American Economist, aping the British centrist establishment magazine. Unfortunately, he was all too successful. As a result, today, Reagan mainstream conservatism lacks a public intellectual voice.

6. The Public Voice of Conservatism? Intellect abhors a vacuum as much as physical matter. So “national greatness” neo-conservatism soon replaced limited government as the ideal and filled the pages of the journals on the right, very much including NR, which at one point even called for a revival of colonialism under U.S. auspices and the building of an American empire. Bill Buckley himself was forced to repair to the pages of rival Human Events-which remained faithful to the original ideals but saw its role as a news magazine rather than as a journal of opinion—to condemn empire-building as incompatible with American conservatism. With the Weekly Standard message boosted by the TV stardom of its editor Bill Kristol—who recently boasted, “If people want to say we’re an imperial power, fine”—neo-conservatism became the dominant public face of the movement. The alternatives were the paleo-conservative magazines, Chronicles and the American Conservative, which were equally disdainful of mainstream conservatism.

7. Domestic Policy Drift. What was the neo-conservative alternative domestically? It was flexible. The Weekly Standard switched from the presidential campaign of Colin Powell to Gary Bauer to finally latching on to John McCain, not noticing they had very different ideologies. That McCain was liberal on campaign finance, government regulation of business, and tax cuts did not seem to matter. To its credit, National Review resisted the drift on domestic issues but was almost always apologetic about appearing “extreme.” With George W. Bush’s presidency, NR and the Standard both became cheerleaders, expressing mild encomiums that it would be pleasant if he moved right domestically but that it was understandable for political reasons if he did not. By 2000, there was no opinion journal heralding the limited-government position represented by National Review in the 1960s.

8. Empire or National Interest? For a movement that began uniquely united in opposition to communism, it is strange that the conservative split would become most profound on foreign policy. From its founding document, the Sharon Statement, conservatives had agreed that all foreign policy had to be justified on the criterion—was it in “the just interests of the United States”? Communism was the “greatest threat” to those interests, so it had to be opposed. Iraq was not so simple for the question was empirical, not principled—was that war in the U.S. interest or not? Was it necessary to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and control terrorism or was Iraq not a threat unless the U.S. invaded and stirred up Mideast terrorism? Buckley and many others calculated war was necessary but still opposed empire building. Philosophically, either he was right that building an American world empire was against conservative principles or Bill Kristol, Max Boot and Paul Johnson-with some NR and the Wall Street Journal support—were correct that a new American colonialism was required to bring peace and democracy to the world. Even President Bush had said: “America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish”-but neo-conservatives were still trying to push him there anyway.

9. Empire Makes or Breaks Conservatism. Global empire is an important issue for conservatism. If the U.S. government has the ability to bring peace and democracy to the world, big government can obviously also run America’s economy and plan its social life—and limited government becomes irrelevant. Here most of neo-conservatism and paleo-conservatism unite in their lack of interest in limited government. Modern conservatism literally shifted the center of American and world politics against unlimited government, at least in thought, in a not insubstantial manner. All politicians today-especially in the GOP—find it difficult to push higher taxes and the belief is widespread that government programs do not work very well. Politically, however, government keeps growing and almost no politician concedes there is any limit to where its benefits and power may reach in the future. Even with the largest programs approaching bankruptcy, the government is immobilized by fear of taking action. Government keeps growing and journalistic conservatism is silent that this growth, especially fueled by dreams of empire, threatens the whole project of American liberty.

10. Up from Conservatism. At the very beginning, Buckley wrote a book called, Up from Liberalism. Today, there is a need to move up from conservatism, not to reject it but to move back to its first principles—back to Ronald Reagan’s mission, to start returning power to states, communities and the people rather than support the lesser-evil big government solution. Any revitalized conservatism must be rebuilt along the lines of the original formula promoted by Buckley and Meyer—what Meyer called fusionist conservatism, which he summarized as utilizing libertarian means for traditionalist ends. Divisions like neo and paleo are unhelpful politically and unnecessary philosophically. Consensus fusionism united conservatism originally and was the banner under which we moved the GOP, America and the world toward greater freedom and responsibility. It is more needed than ever to complete the task.

11. A New Voice for Conservatism? The journalists apparently will not produce a journal of ideas to promote the Reagan vision. Can the American Conservative Union fill the void? It could revitalize its magazine, Conservative Battleline, this time as an online magazine. The American Conservative Union Foundation has already been upgraded and added a division to teach conservative philosophy to the next generation over the Internet—through online courses, readings, philosophy chat rooms and an online bookstore. An online magazine for a principled, center conservatism that pushes the Republican Party right might be the logical next step. Being neither neo or paleo but both libertarian and traditionalist, a fusionist conservative magazine puts the Reagan agenda back on the political battlefield. Please e-mail me at devined@conservative.org and let us know what you think.

12. Back To Square One. The conservative movement today is in danger of becoming a lobbying adjunct of the Republican Party. This means its ideas would no longer lead policy and soon thereafter its ideas would die. At the beginning, there were probably only a few thousand committed conservative activists and intellectuals in the whole country. Liberal intellectuals proclaimed the End of Ideology because there was no conservative alternative. The GOP was dominated by Nelson Rockefeller and the Eastern liberal Republicans controlled the White House, which threatened conservatives with expulsion if they even complained. We rose up then and moved the world right and we can do it again. If we cannot rise to oppose empire, the movement deserves to fail. All we need to do is get off our butts and speak up for our principles.

Dr. Devine is a vice chairman of the American Conservative Union.